Mobilization in Russia for December 24–25, CIT volunteer summary
The State Duma [the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia] is preparing a bill to raise the tax rate for emigrated Russians. According to Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, the Russians who have left should understand that the majority of Russian society "does not support their act and believes that they have betrayed their country, relatives and friends."
The Mozhem Ob'yasnit [We Can Explain] Telegram channel presented an overview of the features and consequences of a military reform proposed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. According to the channel, mobilized servicemen will not be decommissioned: the number of contract soldiers will grow by 300 thousand at their expense. The announced reform will put the country on a military path for many years to come. The Leningrad Military District's revival may be linked to failures of the Western Military District's command. It was these troops who left their positions in the Kharkiv region and guarded Izium. With Shoigu's reform, all the innovations of former Defense Minister Serdyukov will be canceled. If the number of the Russian Army increases to 1.5 million, it will become the second in the world after China. Russia will have a much higher proportion of its population under arms than other large countries. Most likely, the new army forces will consist of volunteers and mobilized servicemen, who signed contracts against the background of the presidential decree on mobilization. According to the decree, it is impossible to terminate a contract until mobilization is over.
There is yet another confirmation that mobilization is ongoing that came from the Tomsk region. Volunteer fighters from the local Toyan Battalion complained to the governor during a direct line about the inability to terminate contracts. According to their relatives, the command extends contracts unilaterally.
In the city of Kursk, 110 draft-dodgers are being looked for by the police. Early yesterday morning draft officers with the police paid joint home visits to men who received draft notices but failed to report to enlistment offices voluntarily. Officers had a list with 110 home addresses due to be visited, according to the local media.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that military chaplains of the Western Military District arrived at the front line in anticipation of the New Year and Christmas. The spiritual mentors did not clarify for how long they intend to stay at the positions. Another video conference, this time with the city of Samara, was organized for the servicemen of the motorized rifle unit of the Central Military District working in the rear area of the “special military operation.” Governor of the Ivanovo region Stanislav Voskresensky visited airborne forces, and, in particular, the training grounds where the mobilized residents of the Ivanovo region are being trained.
Having recently returned from the combat zone in Ukraine, a mobilized soldier and a volunteer fighter, both drunk, detonated a grenade during a massive brawl on a parking lot outside Lyudmila cafe in the village of Podgorensky in the Voronezh region. Sources of the ASTRA Telegram channel report that the explosion broke out at about one o’clock in the morning of Dec. 24. A mobilized sergeant Artyom Shapovalov and volunteer fighter Ivan Kireyevsky of military unit 29760 with their fellow servicemen (captain Sergey Cherdantsev and sergeant Murat Shamilev) returned from the war against Ukraine. On the evening of Dec. 24, Shapovalov and Kireyevsky went to the cafe. Having had a few drinks, they picked a fight with the clients of the cafe. At some point Kireyevsky pulled out an F-1 hand grenade and threw it into the parking lot. As a result of the explosion, local resident Sergey Chernogorov received injuries and was hospitalized, two cars and the cafe building were damaged. In the city of Taganrog, a scandal broke loose after security guards refused to let members of the armed forces into a cafe.
It turned out that the arson of the draft office in the Saratov region, which we wrote about in our sitrep for Dec. 22-23, was committed by Daniil Akimov, 41, a former member of the United Russia [Putin’s ruling party]. In 2011, he held a seat on the council of the Znamensky municipality. The attack on the draft office took place during the night of Dec. 23. A plastic bottle with gasoline and oil residues was thrown into the duty officer's room. The fire was extinguished, but the room was badly damaged. Akimov said that he "set fire for no reason – just for the sake of hooliganism."
On Dec.11, Alash Cheder-ool, a mobilized Senior Lieutenant, commander of the ninth company, third battalion of the 55th Mountain Motor Rifle Brigade, born in 1980, was killed in action.
Specialists from the Donetsk prosthetic and orthopedic center were demobilized after a request from Marina Akhmedova [member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights] to the president Putin at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights on Dec. 7. Some doctors have already started working. The widows of mobilized men from the “LDPR” were given black bags with stew, cereals and detergents.
As the Mobilizatsiya [Mobilization] Telegram channel reports, citing information received from a subscriber, a man mobilized from Kabardino-Balkaria [Russia’s constituent republic] didn’t receive the due payments, was sent to the front line and fired from his job. In Adygea [Russia’s constituent republic], men continue to go to war, and teachers are once again faced with pressure to hand out draft notices, the Alians Uchiteley [Alliance of Teachers – interregional trade union of all those involved in education] reports.
At the children's karate festival in Moscow, medals were prepared from “fragments of NATO ammunition” with the V and Z letters [associated with the “special military operation”]. Those present at the festival said that they would award normal medals to winners, and medals made of fragments would be handed out to all participants of the tournament without exception.
A concert in support of the Russian military was held in a Nizhny Novgorod school. Directorof school No.24 announced from the assembly hall stage that the institution had joined the “All for the Victory” campaign carried out by the All-Russia People's Front established by Putin. The campaign is held in state-funded institutions throughout the country and entails collection of humanitarian aid for the needs of the front. “It depends on us how soon our army will liberate the territories of the LDPR from Ukrainian nationalists,” the teacher addressed her colleagues, students and their parents. After that the audience was shown a video for the song "Let's Get Up" performed by the pro-government singer Shaman and other "stars" supporting the war.
In mid-October, the Baza Telegram channel reported that with the start of the mobilization, the strip clubs traffic dropped by about 60%: allegedly due to a reduced attendance of emigrated officials and wealthy men, as well as security forces representatives (“siloviki”). The news has spread widely in the media, however, as it was found out by the Sota Telegram channel, the news was only partially true.
In the Crimean Armiansk, where the mobilized Buryats are located, yurts from Buryatia [Russia’s constituent republic] shamans were installed to conduct the rituals to “prolong the lives of the mobilized”. At the same time, a member of Buryatia’s parliament discovered that a fellow countryman participating in the "special operation" had only received "a salary of 20,000 rubles for two months."
Administrative resources were used with soldiers brought on buses to the Khabarovsk region Legislative Duma [regional assembly] by-elections to vote.